Black At Heart
by Eva-Mur
Summary: After Ted Tonks dies, his daughter Nymphadora-Don't call her that-discovers that her mother might not be as she seems.


Nymphadora woke with a start at the sound of her mother's scream of rage. Quickly jumping out of bed and throwing a dressing gown on, she hurried downstairs to the living room where she knew her mother would be.

'Mother?' Tonks walked into the room and froze at the sight of her mother. She was dressed in her usual black robes but her hair had fallen out of its neat bun and her dark grey looked almost black. Tear tracks ran down her cheeks. She'd never seen her mother like this before.

'Dora, he's dead.' She knew who her mother meant straight away. Her father was dead. Gone, she'd never see him again. Running forward she hugged her mother tightly, rears freely flowing. They stood like that for a few minutes, neither moving, just grieving. Then the moment was gone and Tonks pulled back.

'What happened mother?'

'Snatchers killed him.' She said in a cold, flat voice. Tonks eyed her mother suspiciously. Her mother always went cold when someone she knew died but not like this. He was her husband!

'Mother, it's alright to grieve.'

'No it's not. He dead! And I couldn't have been there to help him because I was staying to look after my pregnant daughter!' Tonks's hair turned red.

'How dare you blame me!' Her mother simply looked at her coldly.

'If you hadn't married that ... creature, then you would be able to fight. I wouldn't have had to stay here, I could have saved him!'

'Remus is a wizard, not some creature mother! Father didn't want me to marry him because Werewolves can be dangerous and I thought that was your reason too! But it's not, is it? It's because he's not good enough in your prejudiced mind is he?' Her mother sighed and sat down.

'No matter what my reasons are, you're married now. Let's not argue, not now.'

'Is there going to be a funeral?'

'Yes, but we'll have to find his body.' Tonks nodded.

'One day, no matter how long it takes, I'm going to find those snatchers and turn them in.' Her mother laughed, sounding slightly hysterical.

'Arrest them Dora? If I get my hands on them they'll face far more than being arrested.' Tonks shivered slightly at the mad smile on her mother's face. That gleam in her eyes reminded her of Aunt Bellatrix. Her mad aunt.

'Mother!' She said firmly, snapping her mother out of her fantasy. 'If you do that then you'll be no better than Aunt Bellatrix!'

'They deserve it!' At the venom in her mother's voice Tonks recoiled. She didn't sound like her caring mother anymore, she sounded ... mad.

'I will find them and they will be arrested, taken to justice. Killing them won't solve anything.'

'Taken to justice? What justice Dora? The only way to deal with them is to kill them. Painfully.'

'I don't know you anymore mother.' It was true. Her mother, before father's death, would never have said things like that. Tonks knew her mother had been a Black, but she'd turned her back on her family a long time ago, to be with father.

Before her mother could answer, the flames turned green and Arthur Weasley's head appeared in the flames.

'Tonks, Shacklebolt wants to see you.' Tonks nodded. Arthur turned to Tonks's mother, Andromeda. 'Nice to see you Mrs Tonks.'

'Shut up you blood traitor!' Tonks stared at her mother in surprise. Arthur looked similarly shocked.

'Mother! Apologise!'

'No. Now leave, run to your stupid Order!' her mother stood up and swiftly walked out the room. Tonks shook her head before turning back to Arthur, who was staring, open mouthed.

'Sorry you had to see that Arthur. She didn't take news of my father's death well.' Arthur nodded, but still looked slightly confused. 'I'll be there in a minute.'

Arthur vanished and Tonks turned and took a pinch of Floo powder from the pot by the fireplace. As she vanished into the Floo network Tonks wondered whether or not it was safe to leave her mother alone.

The bodies of the snatchers turned up a week later, a quick scan showing that they had been held under the cruciatus curse for a prolonged time. Bellatrix was thought to be the culprit and it was forgotten about by everyone, that is everyone except Tonks.

'Oh mother,' she whispered as she re-read the file about the Snatchers deaths. Her mother might be a Tonks now but this event just proved what Tonks had always suspected. You can't turn your back on blood.


End file.
